Picture Book Review Roundup

Posted December 20, 2017 by shooting in Book Review / 28 Comments

*all books were provided for review, but the opinions throughout are my own*

Cookiesaurus Rex by Amy Fellner Dominy and Nate Evans

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Review by Lauren

Review: Cookiesaurus Rex is all about a cookie in the shape of a dinosaur who wants to be the king of cookies. He’s completely fine with his green icing, and nice top hat, until he sees the other cookies getting sprinkles and gum drops. He wants fun decorations too! This is definitely a fun, amusing read to share with the younger crowd! The illustrations are bright and colorful, and all the dialogue is shown in yellow speech bubbles.

Perfect For: Read this book before decorating cookies, so it would make a great holiday gift! It would also be good for any kid that loves cookies, dinosaurs, and/or anything silly!

Bonaparte Falls Apart by Margery Cuyler

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Review by Lauren

Review: Bonaparte is a little skeleton who keeps losing his bones! He’s about to start school and is nervous about what the other kids will think of him, so his friends try and come up with ways to keep Bonaparte in tact. None of the ideas seem to work…until the very last one, which turns out to be the perfect plan (spoiler: Bonaparte gets his very own dog to help him out)! A very cute read indeed, with fun, detailed illustrations. I like that the illustrations are sometimes needed to understand the story too, so the two mediums work well together!

Perfect For: Halloween, starting school, learning about friends, and explaining why some kids have service animals.

The Queen is Coming to Tea by Linda Ravin Lodding 

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Review by Lauren

Review: This is such an adorable read. Ellie, along with her friends (you realize they are stuffed animals and other toys in the end) get ready to have tea with the Queen. They travel to Paris, China, and even New York to get the best ingredients -and the cutest tutu for Ellie to wear. This is a good book for a slightly older child, as it seems a bit educational in parts and has more of a story throughout.

Perfect For: Boys and girls who dream of being royalty, play tea party, or love learning about other places/countries!

Picture Book Review Roundup: 6 mini #picturebook reviews! Which would you share with the kids in your life? Click To Tweet

Dalmatian in a Digger by Rebecca Elliott

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Review by Lauren

Review: This would make a great book to read aloud with a group of kids, as the various sounds the machines make are repeated throughout! This is more than just a dalmatian in a digger – there are lots of other animals using machines too, but just what are they building? You’ll have to read until the end to find that out! I noticed while reading that a mouse was seen on every page or spread and I figured it would make a fun game – find the mouse! What’s funny is at the very back of the book it mentions that Little Mouse is a sidekick and you should try and find him throughout the book. How funny, right? It’s a great idea, and it adds a game element to the book.

Perfect For: Boys and girls that love building things (Bob the Builder fans, anyone?), fans of animals, younger readers who like to repeat phrases/lines or otherwise engage with a book. This would be a particularly good read for the Spring and Summer.

A Cooked Up Fairy Tale by Penny Parker Klostermann

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Review by Lauren

Review: This is probably one of my most favorite picture books lately. William lives in the world of fairy tales, but all he really wants to do is be a chef. I loved the various fairy tale characters mentioned (and even just seen) throughout the book. Try having your little one point out the various characters, like Pinocchio and the Three Bears. This has a great message of doing what you love, but it’s not heavy-handed at all. It’s just a really fun, fairy-tale themed story.

Perfect For: boys and girls that love fairy tales, kids that like to bake/cook, and anyone that loves a happily-ever-after tale!

Valensteins by Ethan Long

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Review by Lauren

Review: Fran is caught cutting out paper hearts by his friends – and they aren’t excited about this twist at all, since they are more focused on scaring people, not falling in love. Bunny has to explain just what love means – which leads to a lot of “Ewww’s” from the bunch. Fran isn’t bothered though; he knows that love is a lot more than the things Bunny says it is, and he’s okay with showing that love. The illustrations are darker in color, but there is still plenty of color that brings lightness to the spooky characters! Fun, enjoyable read – perfect for reading all-year-round!

Perfect For: Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and any other time you want to talk about the power and/or meaning of love.

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What do you think? Do any of the above picture books catch your eye? I’d love to know your thoughts!

28 responses to “Picture Book Review Roundup

  1. Oh, my goodness!!! These all sound amazing and I totally want to read! Oddly, I mentioned a kiddie book in my post today—some of them are simply timeless, right? I’d love to check out Bonaparte falls apart and the one about the dinosaur cookies and Valensteins—cute! 🙂

  2. oooh cookies! On Sinterklaas, a day we celebrate St.Nicholas, my sister gave me a recipe book all about making cookies! I’m loving it! & I want to plan a day that my little niece comes over and bake cookies with me, a cookie day! 🙂 The first picture book sounds fun and I hope it’s translated into Dutch so I can get it for my niece.

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  3. So many cute books, and I can’t believe we don’t own any of these yet. I especially want the dinosaur one and the Cooked up Fairytale one. My boys would also love the one about bones.

  4. Oh Bone apart falls apart looks so clever and cute. I would love to start building a mini library for my new nephew that just arrived in the summer! I did buy him a book for Christmas. He’s still a wee peanut though but it’s good to get them started early!

  5. Jona would totally love Cookiesaurus and the Digger book as well–he’s definitely a dinosaur and construction loving kid 🙂 I will have to get the Valensteins book for Valenine’s Day too, that sounds adorable!

  6. I have been reading the same board books over and over and over. So many times in fact that I can “read” them without needing them in front of me. I am so desperately in need of some new books!

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